As many of you may know, SpicyIP has been around for about 5 years now (since 2005). Since then, we've mainly conveyed the latest in Indian IP through the medium of "text". Often times, we've used "images" too.However, we've fallen short on the video (and youtube) count. All that is set to change. We bring you our first video, albeit ...

For those of you blessed with the talent to craft clever questions on legal reasoning, there's a competition being run by the IDIA project.IDIA (Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education) seeks to enhance access to legal education by training kids from underprivileged backgrounds for the law entrance examination (CLAT). The hope is that with intensive CLAT (and English) ...

The Controller General of Patents has released a list of 'Scientific Advisors' who can advise Courts on the scientific and technical aspects of patent litigation. Courts have the power to appoint such advisors under Section 115 of the Patents Act, 1970. The Controller General had published a notice inviting applications for these positions on 10 September, 2009. The notice and ...

As expected, a writ petition has been filed challenging the legality of the appointment of the current chairman of the Copyright Board, Raghbir Singh. This came up before Justice Sikri of the Delhi High Court yesterday and notices have been issued.We've been dealing with this controversial appointment in several earlier blog posts. In one of these posts, I had questioned ...

The Wall Street Journal in its Sept 3rd edition carried an article by Dr. Roger Bates criticizing an exhaustive report on spurious drugs in India that was prepared jointly by the office of the Drug Controller Of India and the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI). This report which can be accessed over here was released late last year and was one ...

In the last post, I had penned a few rudimentary non-novel obvious thoughts on what it takes to nurture a culture of innovation based on Prof.Vijay Govindarajan's (VG) work. In this post, I intend to delve deeper into one of VG's recurring themes ("leitmotifs") - absence of fear of failure. I had an interesting experience which I wish to draw ...

There's this series of videos of Harvard Business Publishing on YouTube I came across recently, a good number of which are dedicated to the theme of innovation. One of them, which I found to be of relevance to markets like India is a short interview of Prof.Vijay Govindarajan, Earl C. Daum Professor of International Business at Tuck School of Business ...

'Client-Attorney' privilege is one of those sacrosant principles of the common law system which protects the communications between a client and his attorney from disclosure to a third party, regardless of whether the third party is a court of law. In the context of the common law system, 'client-attorney' privilege is a significant exception to the rule. The 'rule', as ...

Yesterday was an interesting day, interesting because the day threw up a lot of questions, the answers to which I am not sure of (which would mean I have something that resembles an answer), but the very questions have pointed me to another rich area of (potential?) research. I am pretty sure mine may not be the first head in ...

Recently our friends over at Afro-IP brought to light an article by Alec van Gelder in the WSJ on the problem of access to medicines in Africa. While the article is specific to the problems in Africa, its points about lack of infrastructure and diversion of money being major barriers to access are true across almost all developing countries. [Unfortunately ...

This post will cover the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit against an attorney representing Bappi Lahiri, for a bad faith and frivolous copyright infringement claim.Anthony Kornarens, a copyright lawyer based out of the United States, represented Bappi Lahiri, in a suit for copyright infringement and his conduct during the course of the suit formed the ...

Commerce Professor: what is the most important source of finance for starting business?Tintumon: "Father in law".Tintumon, is a character which was created and spread through text messages in mobile phones. This character is portrayed as a small boy who likes to ask embarrassing questions and has a very straightforward thinking. He is quick-witted, mostly inventive, and normally can't stop himself ...

Soon on the heels of the DIPP's discussion paper on compulsory licensing, the Business Standard has reported that the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is planning to regulate 'prohibitively expensive oncology medication'. The BS reports that the NPPA is studying the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) in order to figure out a way in which it can cover even cancer ...

Tis the season of compulsory licensing. First, we have a proactive DIPP exploring ways to create a more optimal compulsory licensing regime in India.And now we have a quasi judicial body (the copyright board) deciding an actual compulsory licensing dispute..a decision that has been the subject of a crisp and succinct review in this guest post.This copyright board decision pegging ...

Matthews George, our serial guest blogger from NUJS, has sent in this concise summary on an fantastic, albeit slightly dated Business World story on the state of research and development of new drugs in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry.REQUIEM FOR A DREAM?by,Mathews GeorgeFrom the late 1990s right through mid-2000s, research on a series of drugs progressed successfully from preliminary experiments to ...

We bring you a detailed analysis of the decision in the big ticket copyright compulsory licensing dispute (sound recording companies vs radio stations) by Karthy Nair, a sparkling 4th year student of NUJS. Prashant had already introduced this decision on the blog.The recent judgment of the Copyright Board in Music Broadcast Pvt. Ltd vs. Phonographic Performance Ltd seems to suggest ...

MIP has come out with its annual list of 50 most influential people in IP throughout the world. According to Managing IP "there are many types of influence that are brought to bear on the IP system:Political, Social, Economic." On the basis of recommendations and research, Managing IPs journalists in London, Hong Kong, and New York decided the final 50 ...

Prashant's excellent post some days ago covered in comprehensive fashion the build-up to the trademark amendment bill 2009, and the poor strategic calls that India may have made in pushing this bill through. Readers may also, in this context, recall a previous, equally insightful guest post on the challenges of the amendment bill, and implementation concerns that India ought to ...

In response to what has presumably been a never-ending series of complaints from practitioners, the Controller General of the Intellectual Property Office has issued a notice to supercede all previous notifications on the reclassification of services in the TM Schedule front, which we have covered here before.Following a meeting with stakeholders on 21 August 2010, the CGPTDM issued this notice ...

In a report titled " A review of intellectual property rights risk in Asia" by Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), India has been rated to be pretty bad in terms of protecting intellectual property rights. On a scale of 10, India has been given a 6.5, where zero is the best possible score.Indonesia tops the chart of ...

Delivering a lecture titled " From University Research to Economic and Social Benefit" at IISc, Sir William Wakeham, former Vice-Chancellor of Southampton University stressed on the need for adoption of a commercial approach to university research, as ToI reported here.Sir William noted that "for the proper exploitation of academic research, many universities in the UK have tried to come out ...

On a day when we just reported a bad rating for IPR protection for India, the news of India's first patent auction rolled in.Tech Transfer 2010,a one day patent technology showcase will be held on August 28,2010 at Ahemdabad where patented pharma products will go in for an auction. This is being organized by Foundation for MSME Cluster in alliance ...

About the Law Review The NLIU Law Review is an endeavour on the part of the student body of the National Law Institute University, Bhopal to encourage and inculcate in the students a spirit of legal research and develop their interest further in unexplored areas of the law. It is the first of its kind in the University which has ...

Sai Vinod Nayani, a third year student at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkotta has sent us this very interesting guest post on the proposed amendment in the Copyright Amendment Bill, 2010 inserting the term 'commercial rental'.From "Hire" to "Commercial Rental" Scope, Inadequacies, Implications & Recommendationsby,Sai Vinod NayaniThe Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 proposes to replace the word "hire" with ...

Shreya Aren, a 4th year student at the National Law School of India University has sent in this excellent guest post on the definition of 'dramatic works' in the Copyright Act, 1957. Clearly blessed with a sharper vision than most of us, she points out to how the Supreme Court may have actually quoted the wrong definition of 'dramatic works' ...